Summer is a bracingly honest season for readers: it's too hot to pretend to be clever, so you just read books you actually like. TIME asked some of its favorite writers what they read when they read for fun

Richard Lacayo

Richard Lacayo picks Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Greene's 1938 novel was his first masterpiece, the story of a killer who has perfected his game  at 17. Pinkie Brown, a hood in the resort town of Brighton, is so good at what he does because he's so dead inside. Even the waitress who adores him is subject to his lethal self-interest. But this is Greene-land, where God's will matters, so they'll both bear witness to the "appalling strangeness" of his mercy.